I first became interested in Trump with the Apprentice. I watched some episodes of the show while visiting my dad over the holidays, and both of us liked it because we like business and tough talk and all that.

When Trump announced his candidacy, and said he wanted to temporarily ban all Muslim immigration until we could figure out what was going on with all of the Islamic terrorism that was happening at the time, I was on board immediately. I've always liked Trump, and I never understood why the left was so fond of Islam, and so apologetic (and even in denial) about terrorism.

I followed the Trump campaign mostly through online communities. The foremost of these was a website that had funny, intellectual commentary from people on the right, originating as an offshoot of the Something Awful forums. The site was extremely pro-Trump and all of the discussion was focused around boosting his chances. At the beginning they thought it was a long shot, and it was amazing to watch it slowly become a reality.

Around this time, nearly everyone I was interacting with IRL was supporting Bernie (and thereby openly embracing socialism), with the exception of some friends at church who also liked Trump. I just avoided talking politics with colleagues or liberal friends because frankly, it was neither safe nor constructive to do so. They'd still bring it up of course, often just assuming I was on board with them (why, I can't imagine), but I mostly kept my mouth shut.

There was also 4chan, Youtube, and Twitter. Anonymous Twitter was a really fun place to be in 2016. I made quite a lot of friends there, and those were mostly the people I celebrated election night with. Since Twitter ended up banning most of the Trump supporters, we've mostly moved to Discord, which is a great service for the time being, and allows quite a lot of cross-cultural interaction. I talk to a wide variety of people about politics there on a regular basis.

The far-left forums, like the explicitly Marxist-Leninist ones, actually celebrated the success of Trump. They just hate liberals that much, I guess. And as for DSA members, I basically lump them in with liberals -- I know they hate that, but that's half the fun.

Honesty time: I wasn't sure that he'd win. I'm not prophetic. I perhaps found it more likely that he'd win than liberals did, with their hilarious certainty. But I was in agony during the hours before the results. I knew my life was going to change dramatically for the worse if she won. I remember watching that NYT meter move slowly. I felt a tremendous sense of shock and relief more than anything.

What else is there to say about the President? A lot of people hate him. The people who are vocal about it, I've mostly had to distance myself from, sadly. I don't like dealing with their snark, and I think they genuinely want to hurt me. Lord knows what the future holds, but I wouldn't take it back for anything.